Kingsley Gray, Manchester.

Nope.

Kingsley Gray, London.

Nope.

Kingsley Gray, Los Angeles, California.

No...

Kingsley Gray, Asaba, Nigeria.

Definitely no.

There were six more Kingsley Grays but they all had no details or profile pictures. Jody sighed, hanging her head in her hands. Facebook was another disappointment in a long string of dead-end social media sites. So far, her two-day search had been unfruitful.

A gentle rap of the knuckles on her bedroom door made her jump and scramble to hide the evidence of her private searches on the laptop. Closing down the incognito window on Chrome, she quickly pulled up a YouTube boxing video on a normal window just as Tyler walked in.

"Alright?" he asked, probably reading the panic that was almost certainly written all over her face.

"Yeah," she replied, beaming at him. "What's up?"

"Just finished reading my book," he answered, snickering as he sat down on the edge of her bed. "May-Li's flat out avoiding me because she thinks I'll spoil it for her again." Jody giggled. She couldn't believe that Tyler's and May-Li's reading tastes were so similar that the former was at risk of spoiling yet another book series for the latter.

"What happened at the end of that one with the long title again?" she questioned, selecting another boxing video because she'd already seen the one she'd hastily pulled up. "I remember you said the staff got stolen or something."

"Yeah, and the King gave his throne up to be with the woman he loved."

Jody refrained from snorting. Only in a book would a man give up his throne for love. In real life, men only gave up their families for love (read: sex). Of course, she didn't know for sure why some of the other residents' dads had walked out on them but her own had probably left for the woman who'd screamed assault at her the other day.

"No one would actually do that," she commented, trying to imagine someone giving up that level of power and money just to be in a relationship with someone. She just couldn't picture it, especially not in today's greedy world.

Tyler raised an eyebrow. "Except somebody did. Edward the eighth. He gave the throne up to marry his mistress."

Edward VIII? She only knew Henry VIII and everyone knew how many wives he'd bumped off just to keep the English throne in his family. Anyway, Tyler was the one who took History as a GCSE; she didn't have a clue about the subject beyond what she'd learnt in school up until Year Eight.

"Sorry, I guess I just don't believe in all of that mushy stuff," she stated, not wanting to sound too cynical. It'd taken her over three weeks just to get to the point where she could laugh and smile freely again and she didn't want to end up dragging herself back into that dark place—the limbo between numbness and heavily suppressed emotion that she'd found herself stuck in after her mother's death. Maybe looking for Kingsley Gray wasn't such a good idea, at least not until she was ready to deal with more heartbreak.

"Trust me, I know you don't," Tyler responded, reminding her of their conversation. "But you've never told me why. Maybe because we don't really talk about that stuff..." he suddenly trailed off, looking down and scratching the back of his neck.

Not this again. Jody bit her lip, feeling downright weird as the mood of the atmosphere in her room shifted. This sort of thing did happen from time to time, like when she sat a little too close to him on the sofa or when they smiled at each other for a little too long, but after her last talk with Sasha in this very room, she'd made up her mind to move past all that. What teenager didn't develop a crush on a classmate or friend? She'd even had a little thing for Bailey a few years back but it'd dissipated pretty quickly because of how mean he was to her. Since Tyler wasn't mean to her and was her best friend, it was obviously taking a little longer for the crush to go away... but it'd happen eventually, wouldn't it?

She had to get a grip; she couldn't let a crush dictate how they acted towards each other. Her feelings had to be painfully obvious if they were making him feel like he couldn't talk to her about certain things and that was the last thing she wanted. They were best friends. They were supposed to be able to talk about anything.

She felt a pang of guilt just then; she hadn't told him about what'd happened at the supermarket yet. She was reneging on the 'promise' she'd made to him about not shutting him out. She couldn't keep doing this... it only made the ever-present divide between them grow wider.

"Err, yeah, we don't," she finally said, picking the conversation right back up. "I guess I don't believe in all that because I've never witnessed it," she admitted, remembering her foolish childhood fancies of her parents loving each other and her. "You know, when I started school and saw that other kids had mums and dads, I wished that my dad would come back and that him and my mum would fall in love again so that all of us could finally be happy. Mum was always mad at me and I thought it was because he wasn't around. It wasn't until she started calling me an accident that I realised that she hated me even more than she hated him. I never thought about him again after that. All the love in the world couldn't have fixed her."

"Come on, you know that she didn't hate you," he spoke in an obvious attempt to lessen her pain. He was right, though. Somewhat.

"Yeah, but she only loved me because of stupid motherly hormones, didn't she? She loved me because I was her daughter, not because of who I am."

"But what if someone does?" he asked, looking up at her in an almost hesitant manner. Her heart skipped a beat. "I mean, what if someone loves you—yeah, in that way—and you love them back? Are you just going to run away from it? You know, just because your parents didn't work out, doesn't mean your relationship won't."

Oh, he was humouring her now. Couldn't he tell that he was the only one she was even remotely interested in? That she was desperately trying to get over him to save their friendship? Or maybe he did know and was trying to tell her that there was someone else out there for her?

"Yeah, well, that won't happen," she countered firmly, nearly spitting the words out. "Can you imagine me with a boyfriend?"

"No, I can't."

She swallowed hard, looking down at her hands, trying to hide her reaction. Those three words stung more than they should've. "Well, that's that then."

"That's not what I meant," he hurriedly added, sounding panicked.

"Well what then?" she snapped, feeling more hurt than she wanted to be as her eyes met his. If this was how she reacted to him telling her he didn't see her as girlfriend material, how would she be able to handle it if he rejected her?

He stared at her for a bit, his face devoid of any emotion, before saying, "Nothing... just nothing."

.:. QK .:.

"Have you and Tyler fallen out?"

Turning to the next page of her homework that was due next period, Jody peered up to see Rosie Kettle taking a seat across the table she'd been sat at for the last good half hour. Her eyes flickered to Tyler who was using the computer situated on the other side of the library before flitting back to Rosie.

"No," she replied, wondering how anyone at school would know that something was up. While the whole school did think they were dating, she and Tyler didn't hang out together at school as much as they did out of hours, preferring to spend time with the friends they didn't see at home seven days a week. "The both of us are just busy. This homework's due after lunch."

"Riiiight," Rosie responded, clearly unconvinced. "He hasn't been told off the entire day. It's a record."

"Maybe he has," Jody muttered dismissively. "You're not in all of his classes."

"Yeah, but I've heard his friends talking about how moody he's been all day and it's not because of his mock results. Everyone thinks you two broke up."

Typical. The pupils in this school were as bad as Floss (who was going to start high school next year). Jody shuddered. Floss was the biggest Jyler shipper out there and would only make the rumour mill run wild, even all the way from Year Seven. She sighed. If she and Tyler really were a couple, they would've broken up by now. They were barely talking. For once, he was the one who was acting off with her, not the other way around, and she didn't know what to do about it. When he wouldn't tell her what was wrong, how was she supposed to help him deal with whatever it was that was bothering him? She was also unhappy with his hypocrisy—why was he allowed to shut her out but she had to share everything with him?

"How's your family?" she inquired, not wanting to think about Tyler a second longer. He already occupied her mind for hours on end every single day, especially during class, to the dismay of her teachers (not that they knew what she 'daydreamed' about half the time).

"Great," Rosie answered with a smile and Jody hoped against hope that the other girl would just drop her enquiry about Tyler. "Lily visited us this weekend. She's thinking of moving back here."

Jody raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised. She hadn't seen Lily Kettle in years; the older girl—woman, really—had stopped dropping by Ashdene Ridge when Carmen and Tee moved out. Carmen herself hadn't visited in ages and Tee only came back recently to help with the Umbleby crisis. It seemed like ex-residents died and crossed over to the other side after leaving the DG. That'd be her one day.

"What about her family?" she asked distractedly, discreetly stealing a glance at Tyler.

Would he even talk to her after they left the DG? They'd promised to be best friends forever but how could they when they stopped talking over trivial things while still living in the same house? She didn't even know why he'd been avoiding her for the last couple of days! Would their friendship still be standing by the time they were adults? Or would they simply be two strangers heading off into the big bad world to start their new and very separate lives far far away from each other?

"They're going to stay where they are. Lily only wants to move because she wants to open a cafe here."

"It doesn't even seem like it's been that long since she moved away," Jody commented, sounding like an old lady to her own ears. "I guess we all have to grow up one day." Lily couldn't be any older than nineteen and was already thinking about starting her own business. Where would she be at nineteen? Where would Tyler be?

"Yeah. You, me and Tyler will all leave care in three years, won't we?"

A shiver ran down her spine. Three years. That wasn't an awful lot of time to get her affairs in order. God, she made it sound like impending death but that was exactly what it felt like.

.:. QK .:.

"Ohhh, I'm so glad it's Friday!" Floss exclaimed dramatically, collapsing on the sofa face first and letting out a contented but muffled sigh.

"You can say that again," Candi-Rose concurred as she padded into the lounge. "I've had breakouts because of all of the stress!"

"What stress?" Ryan scoffed condescendingly. "You're only in Year Eight. Try being in Year Ten!"

"We've got to pick our GCSE options by the end of next week, Ryan," Chloe informed tiredly, wheeling into the room behind her best friend and brother. "They've been bombarding us with info left right and centre."

"I already know what I'm going to pick," Jay—who was still in Year Seven—bragged, standing in the doorway of the lounge with a cocky smirk on his face. "It's not rocket science."

"Nobody cares, mate," Ryan deadpanned like he always did when someone so much as looked at Chloe the wrong way.

Jody watched this entire exchange from atop the pool table, feeling bitter. A girl knew she had rubbish brothers when Ryan looked like Brother of the Year. She hated to admit it but Chloe was lucky, in a way, because Ryan was obviously always going to be there for her. No matter how rotten he was to everyone else, it was plain as day that he wouldn't use her to help him commit crimes—he could probably do that on his own—and that he wouldn't cut her off for a f***ing girlfriend.

She shook her head. She was doing it again; she was allowing herself to be sucked back into that dark place by thinking about her idiot brothers. She didn't need them. Why did she keep forgetting that? So lost in her thoughts was she that she didn't notice that Tyler had walked into the lounge and approached the pool table until he spoke up.

"Can we talk?" he asked, rousing her from her thoughts. She nodded, acutely aware that everyone was staring at them. Those who attended high school with the two of them had no doubt heard the gossip about their 'break-up' and she couldn't help but wonder if one of them was responsible for spreading the rumours in the first place.

"Let's go upstairs," she suggested, wanting to get away from the prying eyes.

They silently walked to her room, passing Ella and some boy Jody had never seen before on their way up the stairs. Any other time, she would've shared a funny look with Tyler at something like this but with the way he was acting, she didn't feel like she could do that anymore. The realisation made her feel empty, like she'd lost something dear to her.

Given that the house rules barred boys from girls' rooms and vice versa, her bedroom wasn't really a wise place to have this conversation but Joseph, Archie and Taz were all in the garden and she didn't trust them not to snoop. Besides, no one actually obeyed that rule anyway, least of all the two of them. Once they reached their destination, she hung back and let Tyler into the room before gently closing the door behind her.

"Was it something I did?" she questioned meekly, going to lean against her wardrobe as he stayed where he was near the door. "Or something I said? Like, something stupid?"

"No!" he suddenly piped up, startling her. He laughed nervously then, his face appearing flushed. "I mean, it's not really anything you said or did. It's, well, it's me."

She blinked. She hadn't expected that. "You? What do you mean?"

"Well, do you ever feel like our friendship's changed?"

The temperature in the room suddenly increased and Jody gulped. This was it. He was going to come out and say that he wasn't comfortable being friends with her anymore and it'd all be her fault. All because she wore her heart on her sleeve and couldn't hide her feelings to save her life—or her friendship. Six years of friendship and this was how it was going to end, all because of a stupid crush.

"I suppose," she said hoarsely, staring at her feet. What else could she do? Lie? No, they were well past that point.

Their friendship wasn't what it used to be and this was no new development. It'd been like this for a couple of years now, ever since that time she thought she was going to lose him to his mum. Back then, her naive twelve-year-old self had thought that she couldn't bear to let him go because he was a sort of substitute for her brothers but Candi-Rose's interference the following year had forced her to open her eyes to the scary truth.

A while after taking that wretched magazine quiz, she'd found that she couldn't quite talk to him like she used to, not in the way she could before they became teenagers, and that that reticence was mutual. He didn't quite treat her with the same ease that he used to and it rattled her. They were still as close as ever—up until the last couple of days anyway—but it just wasn't the same and probably never would be.

"Well, when you mentioned having a boyfriend, it reminded me of all of that stuff that happened with Sophie from the skate park and how it nearly ruined our friendship. I didn't want that to happen again, you know?"

A flood of relief washed through her as she listened to what he had to say and it took everything in her to not let out a massive sigh of relief. He hadn't picked up on her feelings at all. Well, duh, he was a guy. They were all oblivious, weren't they? Wait, was that sexist?

"You didn't have to act all weird around me for days because of that, you idiot!" she admonished, hoping she didn't sound too happy. She looked up at him. "We'll always be mates."

Jody could've sworn she saw a hint of something flash in Tyler's eyes but the moment was so brief that she couldn't tell what it was. "Yeah," he agreed, his voice sounding a little strange. "Mates," he repeated, digging his hands into his pockets and smiling at her, only his smile didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Are you sure that's all?" she implored, sensing that there was something else wrong. He couldn't have acted so weird, making excuses not to hang out with her, just because he thought her getting a boyfriend would negatively affect their friendship.

"Yeah," he answered quickly, twisting the door handle. "Come on, we'd better get downstairs."

"Err, yeah," she responded, following him out of the door.

Hopefully, there'd be no more drama between the two of them, at least not for now.


A/N: Before it became obvious that Tyler and Jody were going to be the TDG's will they won't they pair, I kind of thought Jody and Bailey were going to become a thing, especially in Series 2 (but when they got older, obviously). I sort of realised it wasn't going to go that way by Series 4... yeah... anyone else? Or is it just me?

I didn't really like this chapter. Hopefully, the next one will be better.

Thanks to CharlieSMarts12 for the review.